Winemaking Mythos
NOTE: This post is also available on Dylan's blog dylan.gr
Winemaking is one part knowledge and eight parts myth with a dash of luck for good measure. Like it or not, wine is inevitable. So long as the few basic steps are followed, it can be said that the way each producer makes their wine is entirely up to them. The grapes can be squished, fermented, pressed, sun-dried, cooked, or manipulated a million other ways and wine can and will be derived from them. We all concoct some kind of story in our minds paired with a logical explanation for each little thing we do and don't do. Really, it all sounds very smart and like all myths, every believer is right (despite the fact the myth cannot be verified) and every non-believer is horribly wrong (even if they have verifiable evidence). That's just the way it goes. So some winemakers do this and other winemakers do that and all are both correct and incorrect but at the end of the day, everyone is drunk. Wine is fermented grape juice but it's also dreams and memories and life and mythos. It's a whole world in a bottle, it's love, it's a magical gift from God, or it could be, if that meaning was put into it. It could also just be cheap, shallow and meaningless plonk if that is the desire of the winemaker. Here's the thing though, the nature of reality is such that the meaning ascribed to wine becomes manifest and the wine takes on mythical form. This could be logically explained as the winemaker's philosophy driving decision making and thereby affecting the wine produced as a result, but, I believe it's so much more than that. The wine affects the winemaker as much as the winemaker affects the wine. The winemaker is an instrument through which the wine can express itself. That being said, an instrument out of tune cannot join in the harmony of the orchestra of Nature. This might just be me pushing my mythos onto you, the reader, however, wine made by a sophisticated winemaker is only good for sophisticants and no good for anyone else. Wine made by natural people can only truly be appreciated by natural people. I would go so far as to say that wineries don't have customers, they have fans and fandoms. Like a dog which resembles its owner or an owner which resembles their dog, wine drinkers resemble their choice of wine. The plonk drinkers look like the plonk they drink and the sophisticants have their noses pointed to the sky. I don't know if the wine makes the drinkers (maybe nefariously so) or if the drinkers make the wine. So much meaning is put into wine and so much myth has been created that anyone looking to become an expert on the global, multi-billion dollar industry surrounding it requires many years of dedicated study. As more vintages are made and more wineries and winemakers are born, the mythosverse of nonsense grows. I am of the opinion that this will all implode soon and hopefully then, hopefully, there will only be one wine.
